A majority of consumer products in the market today are sold as liquid products. While widely used, liquid products have disadvantages in terms of packaging, storage, transportation, and convenience of use.
Liquid consumer products typically are sold in bottles which add significant cost as well as packaging waste, much of which ends up in land-fills.
Traditionally delivery of active agents from multicomponent fibers are the result of fibers comprised of typical thermoplastic polymers, such as polyolefins, which are insoluble in water, i.e., the fiber does not fully dissolve. Furthermore, the active agent component of such fibers traditionally incorporates active agents only as a minor proportion, for example, up to about 5% by weight.
The production of micron and sub-micron dissolvable fibers (and corresponding webs therefrom) from aqueous processing mixtures comprising active agents and water soluble polymers would be advantageous due to the very high surface area to weight ratio (immediately after spinning the fibers) which would significantly reduce the drying energy and time required to produce the solid form while still providing a highly open pore structure required for potentially fast dissolution rates. However, the inclusion of active agents can adversely affect the extensional rheology properties of the water soluble polymer composition and the ability to produce fibers. Traditionally, fibers from poly(vinyl alcohol) solutions have included incorporation of minor/low levels of ingredients such as plasticizers (polyethylene glycol, glycerin), extenders (clay, starch), and cross-linking agents all of which are generally known to be compatible with fiber forming processes. However, including high levels of of ionic surfactants (anionic surfactants, amphoteric surfactants, zwitterionic surfactants, cationic surfactants) can be difficult as they may result in generally non-cohesive liquid/paste-like phase structures (worm-like micelle, liquid crystal, and hexagonal phases) even at high concentrations.
The present inventors have surprisingly discovered the ability to produce dissolvable fibers comprising significant levels of active agents, including ionic surfactants. In certain instances, an extensional rheology modifier is included within the compositions to enhance the fiber formation ability in the presence of active agents.
It is therefore an object of the present composition to provide a dissolvable fibrous consumer product that can be conveniently and quickly dissolved in the palm of the consumer to reconstitute a liquid product for ease of application to the target consumer substrate while providing sufficient delivery of active agents for the intended effect on the target consumer substrates (with similar performance as today's liquid products). It is a further object to provide such a product that can be produced in an economical manner by spinning fibers comprising the active agents.